Sequart Organization » Shameless

Unashamed: In Which Concluding Remarks are Made and a Book is Announced, Shameless? The Superhero Tales of Mark Millar

Colin Smith — Tue, 09 Dec 2014 12:00:42 +0000

Shameless? The Superhero Tales of Mark Millar" title="Unashamed: In Which Concluding Remarks are Made and a Book is Announced, Shameless? The Superhero Tales of Mark Millar" style="float:left;" />I hate to break a promise, even if it’s made to no-one but myself. Yet things have changed since I typed “to be continued” at the foot of the last section of Shameless? to be… [more]

“It Would Have Made a Great Comic”: On Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 43)

Colin Smith — Tue, 11 Nov 2014 12:00:05 +0000

Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 43)" title="“It Would Have Made a Great Comic”: On Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 43)" style="float:left;" />Continued from last week. Yet whatever its strengths, Morrison and Millar’s 2099 proposal went to waste, with a far less sweeping and less nostalgic series of changes being introduced instead. As part of the ongoing… [more]

“To Shoot Every Last Skrull On Earth”: On Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics Of Mark Millar, Part 41)

Colin Smith — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 11:00:34 +0000

Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics Of Mark Millar, Part 41)" title="“To Shoot Every Last Skrull On Earth”: On Skrull Kill Krew #1-5 (The American Superhero Comics Of Mark Millar, Part 41)" style="float:left;" />Continued from last week. Despite the precipitous collapse and subsequent flatlining of Swamp Thing’s sales in the second half of 1994, Millar’s career at the half-point of the decade still appeared to be in rude… [more]

“About Sixty Per Cent Happy”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 40

Colin Smith — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 11:00:22 +0000

Continued from last week. The rest of Millar’s Swamp Thing tales shared the same weaknesses as River Run, although they only intermittently reflected the same strengths. The likes of Twilight of The Gods and Chester… [more]

“So Many Questions are Left Unanswered”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 39

Colin Smith — Tue, 14 Oct 2014 11:00:36 +0000

Continued from last week. For the third time in ten months, Millar’s Swamp Thing had presented abortion in a wholly negative light. Nothing that he’d write in the remainder of his tenure on the book… [more]

“Why d’You Think God Created Abortion Clinics?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 38

Colin Smith — Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:00:02 +0000

Continued from last week. After abortion as a vehicle for laddish jokes and abortion as a means for evoking terror, Millar turned to abortion as a symbol of crass irresponsibility. (ST: 147/152/157) In Sink Or… [more]

“Terminate This Pregnancy”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 37

Colin Smith — Tue, 30 Sep 2014 11:00:15 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar makes more use of the topic of abortion in Swamp Thing than most superhero writers do in a lifetime. In each case, abortion is used either as a symbol of… [more]

“Her Deepest, Hidden Secrets”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 36

Colin Smith — Tue, 23 Sep 2014 11:00:38 +0000

Continued from last week. As so often before, Murder In The Dark saw Millar indulging in two of his greatest fascinations: body horror at the expense of helpless female victims and the tradition and dogma… [more]

“Do You Remember Earth Two or Earth X?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 35

Colin Smith — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 11:00:44 +0000

Continued from last week. Though Millar’s River Run tales are rarely anything other than predictable, they’re also undeniably focused, purposeful and enthusiastically told. Even when he’s sketching out the inevitably baleful career of a psychopathic… [more]

“There is Something Wrong with This World”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 34

Colin Smith — Tue, 09 Sep 2014 11:00:51 +0000

Continued from last week. Even when Millar put an appropriately exotic backdrop to use, he frequently neutered its dramatic potential. The desert setting used to conclude the first arc was portrayed in an entirely throwaway… [more]

“Not Walking in Alan Moore’s Footsteps”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 33

Colin Smith — Tue, 02 Sep 2014 11:00:02 +0000

Continued from last week. Of course, there’s no reason why an obvious ending can’t also be a satisfying one. Similarly, a protagonist that seems to lack personality or potency can still be used in a… [more]

“Even The Worst Among Them Has Potential”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 32

Colin Smith — Tue, 26 Aug 2014 14:00:13 +0000

Continued from last week. So, the Millar who wrote Swamp Thing was enthusiastic, ambitious, and ethically engaged. But for all his efforts and good intentions, and for all the occasional highpoint, the run was heavy-handed,… [more]

“Ritual Must Be Observed”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 31

Colin Smith — Tue, 19 Aug 2014 11:00:19 +0000

Continued from last week. As for his two warring Lodges of super-mages, Millar seems to have used them as a symbol of religious sectarianism and reconciliation. Their differing interpretations of how to save the world… [more]

“Why Try to Create a New God?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 30

Colin Smith — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 11:00:40 +0000

Continued from last week. But for all the carelessness and clumsiness of Millar’s scripts, his and Morrison’s Swamp Thing consistently displays a deliberate and serious moral purpose. Indeed, the comic persistently plays out two quite… [more]

“Take a Look Inside My Mind”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 29

Colin Smith — Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:00:17 +0000

Continued from last week. It’s impossible to believe that Morrison and Millar’s Swamp Thing wasn’t intended as an allegory. For all that Morrison’s original plans appear to have been significantly modified by his junior partner,… [more]

“Old Souls, Dark Agendas”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 28

Colin Smith — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 11:00:46 +0000

Continued from last week. The final pages of Millar’s Swamp Thing depict the Earth on the eve of a historically unprecedented golden age. (*1) Humanity has been empathetically transformed through the god-like Swamp Thing’s influence,… [more]

“The Spirit of Hatred or the Spirit of Love”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 27

Colin Smith — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 15:00:03 +0000

Continued from last week. Other aspects of Millar’s closing tilt at Swamp Thing were less praiseworthy. Though the final arc appears to show little of the swaggering misogyny that saturated his earliest work for 2000AD,… [more]

“The Notion that Mankind is Diseased and Must be Replaced at all Costs”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 26

Colin Smith — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 11:00:05 +0000

Continued from last week. The conflict between Millar’s two opposing teams of Masons appears to represent a clash of empathy and hubris, tolerance and tyranny, good faith and a world-razing secularism. Where one Lodge is… [more]

“The War Between the Super-Freemasons”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 25

Colin Smith — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 11:00:36 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar’s command of his craft wouldn’t significantly improve over the remainder of his time on Swamp Thing, though progress would undeniably occur. He’d dial back on the degree of redundant dialogue… [more]

“A Martyr for All Mankind”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 24

Colin Smith — Tue, 24 Jun 2014 14:00:01 +0000

Continued from last week. At first, Morrison and Millar’s scripts were religious only in the very broadest sense of the term. With the former’s influence clearly dominant, Swamp Thing’s series-opening crisis of identity is clearly framed… [more]

“[The] Most Morally Objectionable Comic DC Has Ever Published”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 23

Colin Smith — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:00:37 +0000

Continued from last week. As ever, it’s impossible to precisely disentangle Morrison’s influence from Millar’s. Yet Swamp Thing’s storylines and themes certainly bear the stamp of many of the former’s recurrent passions; magic and folklore,… [more]

Killing the Planet: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 22

Colin Smith — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:00:05 +0000

Continued from last week. Those first four issues of Swamp Thing by Morrison and Millar set the template for the rest of the series. The pretence of an everything-you-know-is-wrong reboot was swiftly abandoned, and “Alec… [more]

“Make Him a Monster Again, Make Him Dangerous”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 21

Colin Smith — Tue, 03 Jun 2014 11:00:18 +0000

Continued from last week. Morrison later made a point of emphasising how central his contributions to Millar’s Swamp Thing had been; “I worked out a large scale thematic structure based on a journey through the… [more]

Sneaking Barry Allen Back: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 20

Colin Smith — Tue, 27 May 2014 11:00:17 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar’s habit of writing Swamp Thing tales, which demanded the presence of off-limits DCU characters, never entirely faded. Even at the climax of his run, and despite almost three years of… [more]

“Try Telling That to a 23-Year-Old Who Just Wanted to Play with the Toys”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 19

Colin Smith — Tue, 20 May 2014 14:00:28 +0000

Continued from last week. That “bloody big shadow” of Alan Moore’s extended far beyond the pages of Swamp Thing. Trying to compete with his achievements on the title was a daunting enough prospect. But Moore’s… [more]

“Swamp Thing was Just a Vegetable who Lived in a Bog, after All”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 18

Colin Smith — Tue, 13 May 2014 11:00:41 +0000

Continued from last week. For almost a decade, Wein and Wrightson’s estimable if brief spell on Swamp Thing would prove impossible to follow. At best, the character would feature in some mildly suspenseful tales marked… [more]

Starting Out Again at the Top: Swamp Thing (1994 to 1996) — The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 17

Colin Smith — Tue, 06 May 2014 11:00:53 +0000

Swamp Thing (1994 to 1996) — The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 17" title="Starting Out Again at the Top: Swamp Thing (1994 to 1996) — The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 17" style="float:left;" />Continued from last week. It’s no overstatement to say that Mark Millar’s first major breakthrough at DC Comics owed everything to Grant Morrison. Offered the chance in 1993 to write Swamp Thing, Morrison assumed the… [more]

(Almost) the World’s Finest Team: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 16

Colin Smith — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 17:00:19 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar was hardly the first comics scripter to bridle at the constraints of continuity. But few can equal his predilection for heedlessly flouting the more obvious aspects of a property’s backstory. The… [more]

“Nice to Meet You, Big Guy”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 15

Colin Smith — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 11:00:12 +0000

Continued from last week. November 1998′s Superman Adventures #25 gave Millar one last substantial shot at depicting The Batman. Putting the overwrought misjudgements of the JLA Paradise Lost mini-series behind him, he returned to the conception… [more]

“Forgive me, Superman. I’m not very good at losing.”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 14

Colin Smith — Tue, 15 Apr 2014 11:00:46 +0000

Continued from last week. Some in the UK fan community saw Millar as Morrison’s heir apparent on the JLA. But despite later claiming that he’d once turned down the chance to write the Justice League, Millar… [more]

“An Arrogant, Aristocratic Batman?”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 13

Colin Smith — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 11:00:24 +0000

Continued from last week. But how were Morrison and Millar to explain away the Batman’s aloof and frequently contemptuous attitude towards even his fellow super-heroes? If the Dark Knight was to be cut away from the… [more]

“This is Not a Dream, but a Plan”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 12

Colin Smith — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 11:00:25 +0000

Continued from last week. There are other indications that Millar might have been a major contributor to the new JLA’s origin tale. In the Justice League’s own title, Morrison had scrupulously ensured that his innovations were… [more]

The Secret Origin of the JLA, and of “Mark Millar” Too: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 11

Colin Smith — Tue, 25 Mar 2014 11:00:20 +0000

Continued from last week. It would be another seven months until Morrison and Millar’s next public collaboration on the Batman. In that time, the new JLA title would establish itself as a remarkably successful reboot. Its… [more]

The Batman As Father Figure: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar Part 10

Colin Smith — Tue, 18 Mar 2014 11:00:52 +0000

Continued from here. DC’s post-crisis, Dark Age portrayal of the Batman had long been a source of aggravation for both Morrison and Millar. Years before Morrison landed the job of scripting the JLA, the two men… [more]

“A Semi-Unhinged, Essentially Humourless Loner Struggling with Rage and Guilt”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 9

Colin Smith — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 11:00:09 +0000

Continued from last week. Grant Morrison’s ambition was, it appears, to free the DCU from the constraints of both wonder-killing editorial dictats and the conventions of the Dark Age. Yet unregulated creative anarchy doesn’t seem to… [more]

A Thousand Batmen Blooming: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 8

Colin Smith — Tue, 25 Feb 2014 12:00:01 +0000

Continued from last week. The superhero genre had become more and more susceptible to the myth of the definitive version. It was a fan-consuming fallacy which presumed that each character possessed an irreducible core of utterly… [more]

Pulling Out of the Dark Age?: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 7

Colin Smith — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 12:00:49 +0000

Continued from last week. It’s only to be expected that Millar’s work on the JLA would mesh with Grant Morrison’s agenda. But it is remarkable how closely and effectively Millar’s contributions reflected his friend’s wider ambitions… [more]

“How Can You Possibly Live in a World Without Superheroes?”: The American Superhero Comics Of Mark Millar, Part 6

Colin Smith — Tue, 11 Feb 2014 12:00:29 +0000

Continued from last week. Who was responsible for what in Morrison and Millar’s many collaborations? Credit boxes are often little help at all. Stories which carried the Morrison/Millar by-line were on occasion the product of an… [more]

“Nice to Meet You, Big Guy!”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 5

Colin Smith — Tue, 04 Feb 2014 12:00:24 +0000

Continued from last week. Though he’d never again see one of his scripts feature in any of the Batman’s many headlining titles, Millar would return to the character over and over again throughout the Nineties. It’s… [more]

“Just Don’t Do It Again”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 4

Colin Smith — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 12:00:07 +0000

Continued from last week. How was it possible for Millar to show so much respect for Bruce Wayne’s back story while portraying such a deeply unconvincing Dark Knight? Though the writer’s take on Wayne was ludicrously… [more]

“There are Some Things in Life It’s Best not to See”: The American Superhero Comics of Mark Millar, Part 3

Colin Smith — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 12:00:49 +0000

Continued from last week. The suspicion that Millar idled his way through his years at 2000AD is at least in part countered by the contents of Favourite Things. For it seems unlikely that he would have… [more]

“Yes, Alfred. Time for Bed.”: The American Comics of Mark Millar, Part 2

Colin Smith — Tue, 14 Jan 2014 12:00:33 +0000

Continued from last week. Favourite Things was the first mainstream superhero tale that Millar had ever sold. Previously, he’d depicted the costumed crimefighter as a horror-hybridised symbol of corruption and cruelty, as with The Saviour and… [more]

Enter Mr. … Miller?: The American Comics of Mark Millar, Part 1

Colin Smith — Tue, 07 Jan 2014 12:00:06 +0000

Continued from here. Exactly when Grant Morrison landed Mark Millar the job of scripting Swamp Thing is hard to pinpoint. Millar has hinted that the GLASCAC comic convention in the late April of 1993 may have… [more]

The Best of Millar: The 10 Most Enjoyable Examples of Mark Millar’s Work for UK Publishers, 1989-1997

Colin Smith — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 12:00:28 +0000

As in last week’s “worst-of”, the following selections are presented in no order of preference; 1. Tales From Beyond Science: Long Distance Calls, with artist Rian Hughes, from 1992’s 2000AD #776. Just as I could… [more]

The Worst of Millar: The 10 Least Commendable Examples of Mark Millar’s Work for UK Publishers, 1989-1997

Colin Smith — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 12:00:32 +0000

Shameless? will be moving on in the new year to discuss Mark Millar’s post-1993 career with a host of American publishers. But before setting out in the direction of Swamp Thing, Skrull Kill Krew and… [more]

“Our ‘War-is-Fun’ Attitude”: Shameless? Part 37

Colin Smith — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 12:00:54 +0000

Continued from last week. Hindsight suggests that Canon Fodder marked the beginning of the end of Millar’s relationship with 2000AD. It was by no means the last of his scripts to appear in the comic,… [more]

“Where’s Canon Fodder?”: Shameless? Part 36

Colin Smith — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:00:31 +0000

Continued from last week. Though pinpointing exactly when Millar stopped working for 2000AD is an difficult business, he’d most definitely moved onto the American market by the time Canon Fodder returned without him in 1996. With the… [more]

“I Only Wanted To Be Loved”: Shameless? Part 35

Colin Smith — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:00:26 +0000

Continued from two weeks ago. Canon Fodder reads as if two distinct stories had been awkwardly spliced together. In its first half, it’s the tale of how the Canon, Doctor Watson and Mycroft Holmes desperately combine… [more]

“Keep Calm. I’ll Wrap This Up Quickly.”: Shameless? Part 34

Colin Smith — Tue, 29 Oct 2013 11:00:56 +0000

Continued from last week. The world-building that Millar had begun to invest in Canon Fodder was unusually rich, distinctly quirky, and full of promise. Yet that surprising combination of Catholicism, Holmesian characters, alt-world SF and superheroes… [more]

“Bones Gnawed to the Marrow”: Shameless? Part 33

Colin Smith — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 11:00:19 +0000

Continued from last week. “I had no idea what I was doing for the most part and just learning how to do very basic stuff then. Only good stuff I’d recommend would be Big Dave (which… [more]

“Two Tickets for My Next Performance”: Shameless? Part 32

Colin Smith — Tue, 15 Oct 2013 11:00:47 +0000

Continued from last week. So how did Morrison and Millar use the pages of Big Dave to express their contempt for homophobia? Starting from the premise that their readers were similarly liberal-minded, they studded the strip’s… [more]

“We Were Just Trying to Bring Peace to the Planet”: Shameless? Part 31

Colin Smith — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 11:00:44 +0000

Continued from last week. The urge to stereotype Millar’s beliefs in the light of his least liberal scripts is an understandable one. Yet his work is anything but consistent on matters of social justice. As I’ve… [more]

“Bog Off Back to Mars”: Shameless? Part 30

Colin Smith — Tue, 01 Oct 2013 11:00:44 +0000

Continued from last week. It’s not that Big Dave is without its pleasures, although the vast majority of them are to be found in Steve Parkhouse’s boisterously dynamic artwork. Though even he couldn’t compensate for the… [more]

“A Few Sandwiches Short of a Picnic”: Shameless? Part 29

Colin Smith — Tue, 24 Sep 2013 11:00:22 +0000

Continued from last week. Given the evidence, it would be hard to argue that much of Millar’s work for 2000AD wasn’t worryingly homophobic. The best that might be said of a number of his scripts is… [more]

“He’s Camp as Christmas, but He’s Good as Gold”: Shameless? Part 28

Colin Smith — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 11:00:06 +0000

Continued from last week. The debate about the attitudes expressed in Millar’s work towards LGBT issues is hardly a new one. Even as early as 1993, Monaghan’s pseudo-interview with Millar and Morrison in Comic World #18… [more]

A Safe Pair of Hands?: Shameless? Part 27

Colin Smith — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 11:00:03 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar’s longest running assignment at 2000AD had been Robo-Hunter, for which he wrote several hundred pages between 1991 and 1993. (*1) Created by writer John Wagner and artists Jose Ferrer and Ian… [more]

“What’s the Point Chief?”: Shameless? Part 26

Colin Smith — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 11:00:09 +0000

Continued from last week. Laughter can be used to reveal prejudice before the mind has the chance to stifle it. But the Millar of the period gave no sign that he disapproved of his own heartless… [more]

“Never Trust A Woman… Women Will Eat You Alive”: Shameless? Part 25

Colin Smith — Tue, 27 Aug 2013 11:00:27 +0000

Continued from last week. But Millar’s work for Fleetway often went far beyond casual, unthinking sexism. As the months passed and the examples of this piled up, he gave every impression of being a died-in-the-wool misogynist.… [more]

“Comic Books Most Dripping-Wet Liberal”: Shameless? Part 24

Colin Smith — Tue, 20 Aug 2013 11:00:05 +0000

Continued from last week. The image of Millar as a tykish, daring and promising newcomer was wearing through by the end of 1992. What had at first seemed like boyish ambition, conspicuous potential and a novice’s… [more]

“The Best Thing Since Dark Knight, Possibly Better”: Shameless? Part 23

Colin Smith — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 11:00:55 +0000

Dark Knight, Possibly Better”: Shameless? Part 23" title="“The Best Thing Since Dark Knight, Possibly Better”: Shameless? Part 23" style="float:left;" />Continued from last week. Despite years of cold shoulders and rejection letters, Millar’s determination to write for the major players in the American comics industry never seems to have wavered. In particular, he continued to long… [more]

“But The Bad People Haven’t Gone Away”: Shameless? Part 22

Colin Smith — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 11:00:53 +0000

Continued from last week. The Spider wasn’t the only long-unseen British superhero to be radically reworked by Millar in Vicious Games. He also briefly laid claim to Tri-Man, who’d been a far more conventional example of the… [more]

“Lots of People Dressed Like That in the Sixties”: Shameless? Part 21

Colin Smith — Tue, 30 Jul 2013 11:00:32 +0000

Continued from last week. Fifteen months would pass until March 1992′s 2000 AD Action Special and the next of Millar’s superhero stories to see print. A stillborn revamping of the Sixties British superhero The Spider, it… [more]

“That Slightly Dodgy, Anarchic Material”: Shameless? Part 20

Colin Smith — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 11:00:48 +0000

Continued from last week. The obviousness of Millar’s influences would become more and more of a problem as his work for Fleetway continued. Of course, 2000AD had been founded upon a deliberate policy of appropriating and… [more]

“A Worm Shouts a Magic Word”: “Shameless? Part 19

Colin Smith — Tue, 16 Jul 2013 11:00:17 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar hardly made it easy for the reader to sympathise with his protagonist. Arthur Montgomery is as unconvincing as a type as he’s unsympathetic as a character, and it’s only in… [more]

“It’s A Rare Thing to be Ordinary These Days”: Shameless? Part 18

Colin Smith — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 11:00:00 +0000

Continued from last week. In fact, it’s more than possible that Morrison actually had a considerable influence upon the format of Zenith: Tales of the Alternative Earths. Four years previously, he’d written his own series of… [more]

From The Saviour to Judge Dredd and Zenith: Shameless? Part 17

Colin Smith — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 11:00:56 +0000

The Saviour to Judge Dredd and Zenith: Shameless? Part 17" title="From The Saviour to Judge Dredd and Zenith: Shameless? Part 17" style="float:left;" />Continued from last week. For a brief moment in early 1990, Millar’s career appeared to be unambiguously prospering. As of May, Trident had, in addition to The Saviour, added Millar’s The Shadowmen to their schedule. Though… [more]

“Celibacy Being Such a Drag”: Shameless? Part 16

Colin Smith — Tue, 25 Jun 2013 11:00:05 +0000

Continued from last week. It often appears that Millar is determined to deny any interpretation of his work that he doesn’t approve of. Yet as we’ve discussed, he repeatedly fails to produce comics whose political content… [more]

“The Evil was the Act of Violence…”: Shameless? Part 15

Colin Smith — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 11:00:27 +0000

Continued from last week. Millar’s preference for deconstructing genre can at times make for routine and predictable comic books. For those who’d prefer more of close observation, ambition and innovation, and less of the bare bones… [more]

“The Flat Earth Was Round”: Shameless? Part 14

Colin Smith — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 11:00:53 +0000

Continued from last week. Where religion’s concerned, there’s nothing but Catholicism to be seen in The Saviour. Not only is there no mention of any other form of Christianity, but there’s not a hint of… [more]

Absolutely Puerile?: Shameless? Part 13

Colin Smith — Tue, 04 Jun 2013 11:00:44 +0000

Continued. But more than anything else, Millar’s depiction of a demon-dominated Catholic Church was a playful, and often deliberately silly, reflection of his personal experiences and tastes. Few comic book writers have ever focused upon… [more]

“A Sharp Fox, the Ultimate Huckster”: Shameless? Part 12

Colin Smith — Tue, 21 May 2013 11:00:05 +0000

Continued from last week. “Half the country, and by that I mean living north of the M25, were victims of Thatcher’s modernisation program. My Dad lost his job when I was 15 and never worked… [more]

“Now Everyone Hates Yuppies”: Shameless? Part 11

Colin Smith — Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:18 +0000

Continued from last week. There’s a sense in which The Saviour helps establish the limits of deconstruction. For Millar stripped away so many of the genre’s traditions that it ceased to be much of a… [more]

A Superhero for the Reader’s Sake: Shameless? Part 10

Colin Smith — Tue, 07 May 2013 11:00:10 +0000

Continued from last week. But even the most experienced and gifted of writers would struggle to make a success of The Saviour. It was far too ambitious and complex a project. In mixing so many genres,… [more]

The History of the World?: Shameless? Part 9

Colin Smith — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 11:00:33 +0000

Continued from last week. But despite its barnstorming high concept, The Saviour was, as Skidmore conceded, “hard to explain” (*1). Some of this was caused by the need to keep key plot-reversals under wraps. But… [more]

From Shazam to the Devil, from Brother Power the Geek to Jesus?: Shameless? Part 8

Colin Smith — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:00:38 +0000

Continued from last week. It’s impossible to say how much the young Millar wrote or how often he sent off his work to publishers in the years before he landed the Trident Comics contract. His… [more]

What if Superman was Really the Antichrist!?!: Shameless? Part 7

Colin Smith — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 11:00:54 +0000

Continued from last week. The Saviour #1-6 (December 1989 to January 1991) Trident #5 (April 1990) The Saviour TPB Volume 1, Trident, 1990 (reprints all of the above except issue 6, with a Neil Gaiman… [more]

“That Wicked Tongue Will Land You in Trouble Some Day”: Shameless? Part 6

Colin Smith — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 11:00:24 +0000

Continued from last week. Shameless? will inevitably reference the way in which Mark Millar has discussed his own work. As such, it’s worth noting that his distinctive public persona turns out not to have been… [more]

The Adolescent High Conceptualist: Shameless? Part 5

Colin Smith — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:00:28 +0000

Continued from last week. It would take Millar almost a decade to develop a style that was as controlled and effective as his ideas were consistently intriguing. The first substantial evidence of this would appear… [more]

Why are People so Frightened of Change?: Shameless? Part 4

Colin Smith — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 11:00:35 +0000

Continued from last week. “Why are they so obsessed with continuity? A story is a story – nothing more, and yet people want to know which Earth Watchmen takes place on.” (*1) The adolescent Millar… [more]

Mark Millar, Deconstructionist, Man and Boy: Shameless? Part 3

Colin Smith — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:00:47 +0000

Continued from last week. From the middle of the Eighties to the decade’s end, the teenage Millar’s preference appears to have been for the breed of super-hero comics associated with the label of deconstruction. The… [more]

On the Professional Pre-History of Mark Millar: Shameless? Part 2

Colin Smith — Tue, 12 Mar 2013 11:00:15 +0000

Continued from last week. Only Mark Millar knows which twelve months of his life would most deserve the title of Annus horribilis. But from what he’s said in the press, the years of the late… [more]

Shameless? The Super-Hero Comics of Mark Millar: Part 1, An Introduction

Colin Smith — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 12:00:35 +0000

It’s too good a story not to be treated with suspicion. Asked to recall his first comic by Lee Randall of The Scotsman in 2009, Mark Millar declared that he could remember the matter “exactly”.… [more]